Saturday, October 3, 2009

Welcome Jay's Playlist, where I randomly post the music that interests me at this time. Before you read the description of the music hit the play button below to play the music (no actual video is shown).

One of my favorite genres is soundtracks. One of my favorite sub-genre of soundtracks is game soundtracks (it is much easier to become attached to music that you hear repeatedly during an emotional 50 hour game). And my favorite sub-genre of game soundtracks is orchestral/band/piano arrangements (most game music is simple techno sounds, arranging it for an orchestra brings a new sound, and legitimacy, to old familiar themes).

This piece has it all. I enjoyed the cult classic game Katamari Damacy and its quirky J-pop soundtrack. Recently a psuedo-remake of the original game was released called Katamari Tribute with new remixes of the original's soundtrack. When reading the track list I came across the "Scorching Savannah High School remix" which was an odd title even for a remix, which can have names like "Katamari on the Swing - SEXY-SYNTHESIZER ALL ABOUT namco Mix". The story behind this "remix" is even more uncommon: a high school band loved the music of Katamari Damacy so they arranged and performed their own medley of it. When Namco (the game company who makes Katamari) heard this they sent their engineers to record the music and voila! the Scorching Savannah high schooler's now perform for the newest Katamari game. How cool is that?

Here are two of my favorite original soundtrack melodies found in the band arrangement:

For a game about rolling up junk to make a bigger ball of junk to roll up even larger junk to create new stars... well this music fits perfectly. Those high schoolers must be proud.

Bonus Playlist:Since I have so many wonderful songs/albums to choose from for these playlist posts, I doubt I will come back to Katamari anytime soon, therefore my next favorite remix is added as a bonus!

I love this quirky Japanese children's choir song from the original Katamari Damacy.

The remix takes such a great song and turns it into a 60's hippie campfire song. Odd, but strangely it works...